Freedom Area High School's Student Newspaper

FHS Press

Freedom Area High School's Student Newspaper

FHS Press

Freedom Area High School's Student Newspaper

FHS Press

Strong Players and Run Away Balls

The girls’ softball team is pursuing their first section win after their 5-3 win versus Western Beaver. The thirst for this win is obvious among the girls who’ve worked for it for so long. “I want the section win like no other; we have been working for weeks and weeks to get where we are,” Sophomore Kristy Sturgess said. This goal should be fairly achievable considering the time the girls have devoted to their craft. “We’ve been practicing since early March, but we had conditioning prior to that,” Sturgess said. While their hard work should help them in their efforts, the team does have to face a few barriers. One is actually the lack of a barrier. The softball diamond finally has a fence once again. According to Sturgess, the fence is “really important since now we have a boundary line.” For a long time, the softball diamond has lacked a surrounding fence. This means that runaway softballs could get far away from the girls, making it even more difficult to prevent the batter from scoring points. “The ball would just keep rolling on out,” Senior Brittany Mavrich said. This also allowed other teams’ outfielders an advantage. In one case, Senior Maddi Lewis lost a home run when the outfielders of another team “were playing farther back than normal,” Mavrich said. The team is also attempting to train a new pitcher, Sophomore Carley Schroeder. Besides Schroeder, the only other pitcher is Senior Zoe Sayre. Sayre is a veteran pitcher, so a lot of responsibility has fallen to her this year. She’s pitched every game so far since the start of the season. This can potentially cause problems because, not only can Sayre become fatigued during a game, but long-term strain can leave her injured. According to athletic trainer Vince Sinovic, her shoulder and arm may “weaken” over time. He assured that it will “weaken before it gets stronger,” but he also mentioned that so far, “she’s been very strong.”